LearnEnglish English is Great Part 1

Richard: So Roger, what’s this? 

Roger: Well this is one of the treasures in 

the British Library’s collections. English 

goes back about a thousand years to Old 

English. This is Middle English, about five 

hundred years ago, and it’s the first book 

ever printed in the English language. 

Richard: So who actually printed this? 

Roger: This was printed by William Caxton. 

Very famous. He went on to print Chaucer’s 

Canterbury Tales, the first bestseller in the 

English language. And one of the difficulties 

you have as an early printer is that there’s 

no standard language. There’s no 

dictionary, there’s no grammars, there’s no 

guides to usage really, so he often had to 

make up how to spell words himself. 

www.britishcouncil.org/learnenglish

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English is Great Transcript Part 1

http://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/en/britain-great/english-great-part-1